The Bubble

One of the difficulties I had not anticipated when we decided to move here, was that it would be difficult to venture too far out of the secure bubble of Escuela Americana. We live on the campus, and have about a five minute walk to work. Nearby stores are easily walkable, and friends with cars help with occasional trips to buy heavy things that come in bottles or cans. And then there is Jose, a taxi driver with excellent English.

Consider that we traveled Lebanon literally from top to bottom, driving close enough to the Israeli border in the south to see the neat rows of settlements on the other side (in contrast to the organic growth of Lebanese villages). And up north, crossing in to Syria on the way to Homs. Traveling east through the Bekaa to Damascus was a routine trip. In Beirut, I walked (and jogged) miles, through neighborhoods and districts. When Carol discovered the bus routes, a whole new adventure began!

When I remember Lebanon, I tend to forget that it took several years to build up the sense of confidence that allowed us to travel so widely. School has taken us on some bus trips  as have friends with cars. But independent out and about exploring has been tricky.

Some of it has to do with how fearful some Salvadoran friends are of traveling. I mentioned that I wanted to take a bus to nearby Santa Tekla's market, and a local friend leaned in close and quietly said "No you don't." Another friend offered to watch me as I walked half a block down to a store to buy cat litter. A lot of Salvadorans live in their own bubble, so I won't be too hard on myself for difficulty.

The weather is getting better, the rain is almost over, and that will make going places easier. More photos here soon, although I have been posting more on Flickr; you can see them here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/13968680@N07/

Time for lunch!

OCTOBER

October 17, 2013
October! The word rustles like orange leaves under your feet. The evening air hints at frosty nights and yet the ebbing beams of sun warm your face. The days feel shorter and you ask yourself when did it get dark? At least that's the October I remember.

My question of the day is will the rain hold off so that I can get a quick swim? Maybe yes today. Yesterday the gray sky lowered slowly and by the afternoon, the volcano was covered. I did get out for a run, but then it finally decided to rain so I let myself head home early. The real rain did not arrive until after dark, and right around bedtime its friends showed up. Thunder and lightning here is a more intimate event than in New England; it feels as it it is right on top of you. Eventually they all went off to play somewhere else, but it was a substantial amount of rain.

I will try to post some photos of the birthday party at the Posada. I say try, because I'm on a pc, the photos are on a couple of jump drives, and I haven't really even looked at them all. Happily, I have arranged to use an iMac in the high school library, but only on my off time. (I may get spoiled by that huge screen)

You know it's a good party when Mother Teresa puts in an appearance. Two pinatas helped too.
Clearly, I figured out the photo system (not rocket science) but selecting from thumbnails wasn't so hot. I'll try to be a little more selective next time. With my iMac access, creative work should go better, and that will be a nudge to get out with the camera more.

I neglected to mention that Papa John's in Santa Tecla donated the pizza and the bear. They both added a lot to the party, and I could be persuaded to eat there. It was good (gringo) pizza.

I'm back! but this time from school.
It's nice to be on a keyboard that can type the letter p.

I'm at a pause between tests; the kids seem to be finishing this one up quickly (Language) but they are doing well. I think being bi-lingual helps. The Lebanese kids in Beirut did well with it too; many of them spoke three languages.

Recently a group of EA teachers went on a field trip in Santa Tecla, to visit some possible community-service locations. One was the Posada, a community soup kitchen/dispensary. That's where Carol and I will host our birthday party for local kids. There will be a Hello Kitty Pinata for sure,  (I will be the one with the biggest stick).   The next place was an orphanage that raises organic rabbits, sheep, pigs and fish. Sadly, the government is closing down the orphanages and returning children to the (often abusive) homes they were taken out of. So, there were no children, just an eerie mossed-over playground. Then we went to an old age home for women. They were quite a group!

Here are some shots of the day:

Dear Friends,
I'm working on a Mac that needs a new motherboard ($1300), so it may check out on me at any time. For now, though, I will think positively; denial is not just a river in Egypt.

We continue to settle in pretty well! School is busy for both of us; for me, the testing is full time (I'll be back to part time after next week) and Carol is well into the admissions process. Recommendations loom ahead...  Our little house is getting more comfortable every day, with a lamp here, a vase there.
We're trying not to accumulate stuff, as we have plenty of that back in RI. I'm probably having the most fun out in the yard (which we don't have in RI!) There is a gardener for the complex (it's called the Complejo) and he trims grass and bushes, etc, and also special projects that we ask for. The school provides a lot of plants, and we have bought some at the Jardin Botanico.

We'll be getting up to the nearby city of Santa Tecla this weekend, to set up our birthday celebration at a local food pantry, complete with pinata and pizza, and lots of kids! It should be fun. After that we will explore the local mercado (which is a big outdoor shopping mall) and also get some coarse ground corn, which makes great kitty litter.

I'm gonna post this if I can, and be back later if it's possible.

Dear Friends
I'm sorry to have gone dark for these recent weeks. That was not my intent!
Both macs have had their disfunctions, serious and fixable, but none fatal.
Carol's still can't enter the letter between o and q, which leads to some interesting word choice and syntax.
Mine needs a new master board.... ouch.

Here are some images from a walk today. They will be added to a series called "Decay"

First Week of School

Well, it was a busy week! School has started, and while I do not have a classroom full of students, there seems to be plenty to be busy with. My focus is entirely on MAP testing, mostly helping teachers use the pile of data that it produces about their students. (The Measures of Academic Progress is a computer-based achievement test for grades 3 to 8. As students take it, the test selects questions based on their right, or wrong, answers. The result is an accurate indication of the kid's instructional level in Reading, Math, and Language Arts, as well as several strands within each area.) All the info is accessed by teachers shortly after the test is taken, but it can be daunting to get it and use it. That's where I come in! Grades 3 -5 start on Sept 9; that's when I will get really busy!

We continue to settle in comfortably. Little by little we are making the kitchen a functional place; we did bring some basics, but it is surprising how many little things it takes! Food storage is important, because even the smallest morsel of food is sure to bring a parade of ants. We have two kinds, very small and microscopic. The littlest ones only come around when the big ones (comparatively) are not there. We have the occasional BFR too, but I'm not sure where they come from. Outside, I hope!

It is the rainy season now, and it rains for a little while almost every day. Usually it is at night or late afternoon, but today it's a mid-day downpour. No thunder or lightning yet but when it does it's LOUD!
All of the plants that Sebastian the gardener put into our backyard will appreciate the soak. As far as I can tell, just about any stick you put into the ground will grow! All of the house plants New Englanders work so hard to grow are landscape plants here, and many grow into trees. I saw a trimmed hedge of gardenias yesterday, and huge multi-colored crotons are everywhere. We have some sort of citrus in the backyard, with bananas nearby as well. It's raining now; I'll take some pictures when it stops.

Stay tuned!

Orchids

Here are the orchids that now live on our patio. If anyone knows what they are, I would appreciate that information!

Update: the little yellow flowers are Oncidium sphacelatum

Update: this one is Epidendrum Cochleatum

The plants have grown onto the branches or pieces of wood that they were originally wired to.
The flowers themselves are small, so I have posted photos of the whole plant so that you can get a sense of the scale from the bricks. BTW, the $$ for these three was $20.

Update source: I posted these on Flickr and put them into a couple of orchid groups. Someone gave me the ID on these two (anon)

Up early, and it's Saturday....crap!
Oh well, it makes time to post some photos.

One of the field drips that the Welcoming Committee took us on was up into the mountains towards the west of San Salvador. They are all volcanoes, of course, but none active. I think there is one to the east that smokes from time to time. Anyway. At the lower altitudes, the fields were covered with corn or cane sugar. (the coca cola here is made with real cane sugar; I think if they used the high fructose corn syrup they feed the gringos, no one here would drink it)(more on coke later)

With a little more altitude, though, the main crop is coffee, coffee, coffee. It's everywhere! Coffee is grown on huge fincas (plantations) or in a patch of ground behind a little shack. I think the small ones get together in collaboratives to share the processing, and there is a lot to be done between the red bean on the tree and your mug. (pausing to sip).  Here's a link to a blog that will tell you about the process and the costs: The real cost of coffee

Eventually, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant call El Jardin de Celeste. We were surrounded by the garden; it was full of outrageously bright flowers, bougainvillea, bromeliads, orchids, and whatever these are.

The orchids, it turns out, are for sale, so now there are three of them on our shady patio columns. I bought the one hanging on the tree to the left of the door. I'll take a better photo when the sun comes up.

Then it was time for lunch. There were many choices, of course, so we went with the Plato Tipico,

chicken for Carol, meat for me. (meat - beef, usually grass fed). Also on the plato: rice, naturally, mashed red beans, avocado, and some fiery green sauce. It also came with amazing fresh tomato soup, which Carol had with just a dollop of crema. But I had Soup de Tortilla, which was really a meal by itself. Built on Carols tomato soup, there were fried tortillas, queso fresco (I think), crema on top, and lurking down on the bottom, a few slices of avocado. I googled recipes, and the closest I could find was this version:  Mexican Soupa de Tortilla  

After lunch we went on the the village of Ataco, usually a sleepy, kinda touristy little village, but today they were having a coffee festival of sorts, so there was lots of music, food stands, and, well, coffee! There were also a lot of colorful old weathered walls. 

Also some clothing (I took this for a neighbor, Scott Coulter) Indigo was once the basis for the entire Salvadoran economy, but it crashed when cheaper chemical dyes became available. (mid 19th century)

I'm not sure if this is local indigo or cheap chemical. I am hoping to find the real thing in something other than a tie dyed tee shirt.

OK, the sun is up, the birds are too, and I need to make more coffee!

Enjoy the weekend!

Internet (and other things) At Home

Today was the last day of a week of meetings, team building, retreats, gettin' up early and wearing shoes and socks! But summer is over and now it's time to get to the real work of school; the kids start on Monday.

I've missed the blog for a few days because we lost our internet connection, but happily we are back on now. It went out at the beginning of the Salvadoran holiday of Augustino on August 1. Since the holiday goes to the 7th, I knew there was no way it would get fixed until yesterday. Enjoying new holidays and traditions is one of the pleasures of international living, but ya gotta be flexible.

Another of those pleasures is getting to know another cuisine. There is no shortage of US fast food places here (why do we export the worst?) but we don't eat at them in the US, why would be do that here? But we have eaten out in some interesting local places. The first was a papuseria up in the hills. That is, of course, where they sell papusas, which is probably the Salvadoran national food. It's a round, flat pastry that is stuffed with different things (meat, chicken, cheese) and then pan fried. But our main tutor for Salvadoran food will be Rosa, our amazing housekeeper. On her first day here she left us a pot full of rice and another pot full of cooked-up beans. I don't think it gets more Salvadoran than that!

More on food soon. Grace has just corralled a BFC, and I need to deal with that. Another pleasure of the tropics, I guess.

Today, the newcomer's Spanish class took a field trip! I was more of a cultural lesson than a language lesson, but any good language teacher would tell you that the two are intertwined. First, we went to downtown San Salvador, which is the older part of the city. Street vendors and markets were everywhere, and I will return to them for sure. But our first destination was the Bibliotheca Nationale, the home of a considerable collection of old and new Salvadoran literature. Digital, braille, and hard copies of many texts are available.  There was also a large painting of all the presidents of El Salvador:

That's Patrick and Hudak looking presidential; the brass plaque is a key to who is in the painting.

Then we went across the square to the Palacio National, which is the center of the government. They seem to have been on a hiatus, as it was mostly closed inside with no tours possible.

From there is was a short walk to the burial site of Msgr Oscar Romero, a pivotal figure in the fight for independence here. The tomb was somber, and clearly a site of some national importance and pride.

Even more important and heartfelt, however, was the place where he was killed. He lived and cared for a hospice center in San Salvador. He was an activist for the poor of El Salvador, and because of that, he was a target. While he was serving mass, a gunman fired a shot from a car in front of the church, through the open doors, all the way to the altar, where Msgr Romero had just lifted the chalice. One shot to the chest killed him.

More on Msgr Romero soon.  (There is a movie: "Romero" on Youtube)

Te rest of the day was taken up with opening a bank account and getting a debit card. And a quick swim in our pool before the thunderstorm. 

Only a few minutes to spare between meetings and Spanish lessons, but I did promise a few snaps of things so far, so here are two: our little house in the complejo, and the EA soccer field with the volcano in the background. Some view, eh?

It's Thursday morning, and the sun and I have been up for about an hour. Carol is still asleep, Grace is on the couch with me, and Helou is supervising from the dining room table. We are all comfortably at home.

We now live in a small, two story house, with two bedrooms and two baths upstairs, with a kitchen downstairs that overlooks a dining room/living room combination will a wall of jalousied windows that faces East. Outside there is a covered patio and a little yard. 

Grace and Helou have not lived at ground level since they were on the street, and now Grace has gone into full hunter mode as she stalks a bird hopping just outside the window.  She won't be allowed out though, there are unfriendly critters out there. Both cats made the trip well; she did her usual hide-out-in-a-tiny-space routine when we got here, but he spent his time exploring. Grace finally left her little nook (on top of the refrigerator), but is still on alert for noises, strangers, and, of course, birds.

It's Thursday afternoon now, and the day has been full of meetings, Spanish lessons, a big shopping trip to a hardware/housewares store, and now it's time for an icy glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Amazingly, the local Costco franchise carries our usual wine selection from Concha y Toro, a Chilean winery. 

We haven't done a big grocery shopping trip yet, that's in the plans for tomorrow. We really don't expect to be buying a lot of American stuff (it's more expensive) Salvadoran coffee will be just great and certainly local produce (Avocados 4/$1), mangos about the same. I did bring some shiracha, and I might buy Hellmans if I see it, but beyond that, local will be fine!

OK, no grocery shopping means dinner out, so we must explore.

Photos soon.

Stay tuned.

Mercury in Retrograde

Today was gonna be the big day! It didn't quite turn out as we expected...
After having packed Nicholas' van on Saturday night, here's how it went:

4:00AM Alarm, showers, last minute pickup, find cats, last trash out,
5:30 Meet Nicholas in the parking lot and we're off!
5:50 Record time to the airport! Drag all the bags in, present papers, etc
5:55 Oh, you're going where?? El Salvador? hmmmm...
5:56 International flight, you should have been here at 5, and you have cats, that takes even more time.
5:57 No, we're just getting a flight for Atlanta
5:58 After a long time on the phone, the clerk informs us that we aren't getting on the plane, and that
our connection was so close in Atlanta that even if we made it (big if) our bags probably wouldn't.
5:59 Hey Nicholas? Have you gone back to sleep yet? How would you feel about another ride to the airport to come and get us? He's awake, and he doesn't mind.
5:20 Van reloaded and headed back to CF.

The agent was able to book us on to a flight to Atlanta on Monday and another from there to El Salvador on Wednesday. Both have civilized departure times, and we will be arriving well ahead of the two hour limit.

We will miss the beginning orientation at EA, and some settle-in time, but the  silver lining is that we got to catch up on some much-needed sleep today, and overall, the travel schedule is much kinder.

And Nicholas can take us to the airport tomorrow!

Dinner

At 6PM it's 92 in Central Falls (down from 97) and it's 82 in San Salvador. That sounds pretty nice to me!  The cool-off should arrive tomorrow, hopefully without a lot of destructive weather.

We're in countdown mode now. Mostly packed, what remains to do it just organizing the loft so that it's a place we're happy to come back to in December.

Tonight's meal was a Rhode Island celebration: Lobster Rolls, a little potato salad, sliced tomatoes  and Dark & Stormys. D&S is the official summer drink of Newport, ginger beer and Gosling's dark rum with a squeeze of lime.)

Tomorrow for breakfast, we may head over to the Modern Diner, a Pawtucket landmark, for breakfast. There will be many weekend specials possible, but Lobster Benedict is a leading contender.  There will be plenty of time for a healthy diet of fresh fruit and veggies in ES.

I'm sticking to the keys, so I'm done for now.

Getting Close!

The Weather Gods are playing a joke on us! For the past several days, and more to come, it has been cooler in San Salvador than it has been in Central Falls! SS has a little more humidity, but the temps have been much higher here. 94 here, 88 there... It has even been cooler in Beirut!

 But, departure preparations continue, no matter how hot it is. So, yesterday we finished up the details of taking Grace and Helou to ES. They needed to be wormed and de-flead (even though they had neither) and then certified by a (thankfully) nearby USDA Vet center. So I guess we have USDA certified prime kitties!

 Today was for organizing bill-paying, talking to CVS about prescriptions and seeing Isaac for haircuts. Isaac has been cutting Carol's hair since 1975, and I became a convert some time after that. He's worth the trip! Inbetween all that, we went to a great Greek restaurant in Newton called the Garden Grill. They have all sorts of Greek specialties; today we went for two Gyro salads, meat and chicken, a side of tzaziki and a small orzo salad. It was all good! It was too hot for anything but a salad, and I'd like to go back on a cold day for a big slice of moussaka or pastitso.

 The sun is down now, and the breeze a bit cooler. We were out on the deck for the hot time (6 to sunset) and I enjoyed some Goslings dark rum on the rocks. More sensibly, Carol had a wine cooler. What's on for tomorrow? Wait and see!

The Beginning

The Mighty Blackstone! In 1966 I took a summer job in Rutland, Massachusetts. In 2011 I moved to Central Falls, Rhode Island. What connects those two locations? The Blackstone River. Rutland is the northernmost watershed of the Blackstone, and Central Falls is the penultimate city through which the Blackstone flows. Pawtucket gets the credit for being the end (after the falls at Slater Mill the Blackstone becomes tidal). And Pawtucket gets all the credit for the industrial revolution in the US (Slater Mill) even though the chocolate mill in Central Falls preceded it. The Blackstone has flowed through my life so many places! Rutland, Worcester, Grafton, Uxbridge, Cumberland, Central Falls. And yet I have taken many paths (streams?) that have taken me to other places. This blog is a tribute to the Blackstone, its role in my life, and my travels near and far. I’ve blogged before, but things have changed, so this will be a learning experience for me. Adding photographs, and text, and links, will all take some time; be patient! To begin, we start with a trip away. On Sunday, we fly to El Salvador, for a two year position at Escuela Americana (both of us). We’re packing, so stay tuned.